


Firefish

by HappyLeech



Series: Firefish/Striped Marlin/Harp Seal/Golden Jack [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Grand Theft Boat, Mermaids, Mild Gore, Other characters and tags to be added, Partial Mind Control, Supernatural Elements, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-09-18
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HappyLeech/pseuds/HappyLeech
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Really, if she can deal with omnics from the sea, Hana can deal with being a mermaid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Hana Song was barely 19 when she died. 

Her entire squad had been taken down off the coast of Busan, and while the other squads pushed the omnic back to the sea, the loss felt was immense. 

While there were complaints and uproars whenever a MEKA pilot died, especially when they were famous, the fact that it was D.va would have been enough to put the final nails in the coffin of the program, if not for the fact it was so desperately needed.

The official cause of death was listed as drowned, the techs able to determine from her black box that she hadn’t been destroyed in her MEKA, instead initiating the self destruct and ejecting. She’d been strong swimmer, of course, but obviously it hadn’t been enough to save her, out in the ocean with a giant omnic.

But of course Hana Song wasn't really dead. 

How could she be? She was not just the darling of the Starcraft community, but of the MEKA pilots, the international gaming community, of half of South Korea and a good deal of the rest of the world. She was a legend to the people who’d met her, who were protected by her, and who watched her fight.

 

When Hana wakes, at first she doesn’t notice anything wrong. She’s warm, it’s a little dark, a typical morning in the 19-year-old’s life. Then she realizes that she’s wet and feeling floaty, not sore and hunched over her computer after a week of battle. She’s also being held, at least four hands on her arms and sides.

There’s a taste she does not recognize in her mouth.

Hana panics. Eyes shoot wide open, ready to kick and scream and fight, ready to get away from whoever has her. But all around her is water, water flowing into her lungs and she chokes and she’s drowning, goddamn them—

“D.va! D.va noona! Calm down, it’s okay!” There’s at least 4 children in the water around her, and even with Hana’s panicked eyes she can see they aren’t the only ones, adults and teenagers and—

An older woman shoos the boys away, but they don’t go too far, and she pulls Hana into a hug all while murmuring apologies.

“We didn’t know what to do—we’ve watched you fight but you’ve never lost…we had to save you, because we know you can stop it.” She gets the feeling that the woman is crying, but she can’t be sure. People are crowding around, and there’s what feels like hundreds of faces watching her. If she ignores everything else, Hana can just believe it’s another of her streams, or another publicity stunt pulled by her managers.

Hana feels herself calm down a little at that though, before pushing back against the woman holding her, squirming. She’s 19, not a child. She doesn’t need a hug, but rather answers. 

“W-what’s going on?” she chokes and sputters on the water once she finally speaks, the taste of sea water on her tongue mixing with whatever the other taste is, leaving her vaguely ill. “I…my squad! Are they--?”

 

There’s silence from the people around her, and Hana decides that she must be dying, dreaming something to take her mind off of whatever’s happened to her. That’s the only way to explain how she’s floating in the water, talking to people and not drowning. With a sniffle, Hana goes to draw up her legs, too bury her head in her knees, not even caring if everyone sees her cry.

But her hands don’t grab the spandex of her suit, brushing instead against scales as she grasps, not looking down out of fear.

So, she’s lost her legs. No wonder she’s hallucinating.

Her eyes go wide at the though, before she clenches them shut with a shuttering sob. She’s dying, bleeding out, and no one is ever going to find her body because they don’t send searches out to look for them because of the danger, and—

 

“Song! Look at me!” Someone else had their hands on her, and Hana shakes her head. She doesn’t want to. “Song Hana, look at me right now!”

She’d got her hands covering her eyes now, but slowly lowers them, opens her eyes, and clenches them shut again.

“Sunsengnim…?” her middle school teacher is there, floating there, and Hana nearly loses it again. The man had died in a flood on the coast one year when the omnic attacked, there was no way he could really be there. “Am I dead?”

He laughs, and Hana frowns. It’s a perfectly legitimate question to ask, especially since, now that she thinks about it, the last thing she remembers is activating the self-destruct and launching herself into the air.

“No, you aren’t. Well, maybe according to the rest of the world, but you’re still alive. Look down.” He’s grinning, and she cracks open an eye, then looks down.

 

Oh. That’s why she couldn’t feel the spandex of her suit or her legs. Attached at the waist, under the torn fabric of her suit, Hana now had a tail; a pale pink thing, purple, red, and blue decorating the fins. 

“…oh,” she says quietly, before turning and looking closer at her old teacher, the old woman, the children who’d crowded her. They all have tails of different colours and shapes, and maybe it’s a little odd for her to accept it as truth as fast as she has, but what else can she say?

How is her being a 19-year-old gamer who fights a giant robot yearly to keep her country safe any more ridiculous than the thought that mermaids are real?

Well, fought. She doubts the military would have a MEKA equipped for a tail, and even if they did…

“How…how did this happen? I wasn’t like this before…” The people around her sigh in relief, like they were worried that she wouldn’t believe that the tail was hers.

“There’s…I can’t explain it very well, Song. If you die in the water, you’re dead. But if you’re still alive, and one of us reaches you, we can make you into one of us. If they’re close enough to shore, we usually just carry the person back, but you were so far out.” Her teacher shrugs, and turns to the old woman, perhaps hoping she’ll explain better for him.

“It takes a fish and the blood of a mermaid to make you one, and Korea needs you.” The woman says, and Hana swallows. The pressure of the MEKA program was bad enough sometimes, now there’s at least a hundred mermaids who want her to win too.

“I’ll…I’ll try my best!” God, she doesn’t feel like it, it’s too much damn effort, but Hana puts on her best D.va face, grins and smiles and listens as the people start to laugh. 

 

One of the boys shouts “Fighting!” at her as she explores her new addition to her body, the crowd dispersing a little as she flicks it, propelling herself forwards a little. It’s part of her for sure, barely any thought needed to propel herself through the water, and Hana swims in a tight circle before stopping in front of her old teacher and the old woman.

“How am I supposed to do this? I don’t have my blaster anymore, and I doubt it’d work underwater anyways…” she says, and her teacher snorts before turning away.

“You’re smart, Song. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

The older woman sighs and crosses her arms. “You’ll have to go talk to her, probably. The old one in Greece. Most of us don’t know anything about what we can do, but there’s an original Mer living in Greece…she’d know what to do.”

“So, you’re saying I need to swim to Greece.” Hana doesn’t even try and keep the exhaustion and annoyance out of her voice now, and the woman shrugs in response.

“Yes.”

 

And that was how, three hours later, Hana Song found herself slowly making her way out of the Busan area, the only thing she knew about her destination the name.

Ilios, Greece.


	2. Groups of three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hana learns some things about being a mermaid

It takes Hana 3 hours to find herself alone in the water, drifting almost aimlessly. Other mermaids swam with her up to a point, fans telling her how much they loved watching her, parents telling her how proud they were, how happy they were that she was there to protect their families.

It was too overwhelming, and once there’s no one in sight, she slowly, carefully, rises to the top. Can she even breath air now?

Hana takes a deep breath, or something like it, and breeches the water.

It’s night now, she thinks, as she takes a careful test breath, before almost sobbing with relief. She’ll never get used to breathing under the water, never.

There's nothing around her but water, and it strikes her suddenly how alone she is. All her fans think she's dead, her friends in the MEKA program think she’s dead or _are_ dead, she’s probably never going to see her family again, and the only people she’s going to be able to talk to are goddamn mermaids and—

It isn’t until she inhales water again that Hana realizes she’s crying, sobbing, hunching over her tail and shuddering. Fuck, that’s a thought she never thought she’d have. Her tail.

She carefully let’s go of it, a few scales sticking to her fingers where her nails were digging in, and tries to calm down. It’s easier said than done, though, but still Hana tries. Breathing in and out doesn’t work, the water going through her - _oh god she has **gills** now_ \- a distraction. And imagining the scenario differently only makes her sob worse; in another world maybe she really did die, in another world she’s just a civilian, in another world, another time—

“Stop that. You’re D.va, you can’t flip out like this,” she croaks to herself, and it helps her a little. Enough, at least, for her to find an outcropping of rock under the water for herself to lay on.

Looking up the sky looks so different under the water than it ever did from land, and Hana take her time to focus on that. She never learned the constellations, too busy filling her head with Starcraft strats and military maneuvers, but the sight of them is enough to calm her, send her into sleep.

* * *

It takes Hana 3 days to realize that maybe she doesn’t actually know where the hell she’s going. 

The only direction she got before taking off and swimming furiously to the West was a general direction to start in, and now she’s go no idea if she’s closer to Taiwan or the Philippines. Hell, she doesn’t know what time it is either.

The only thing Hana does know for sure is that she misses food. 

Not in the sense that she isn’t eating, she is eating when she’s hungry, even if her first attempt to catch a fish was embarrassing. It was something that she’d edit furiously out of one of her videos if this was one. But it’s just fish. Live, raw fish too, and if she gagged and threw up from her first attempts to eat one, she’ll tell no one.

“I miss kimchi. And trotters. And japchae. And soondae...” she sighs as she swims, a fish in one hand, making herself more and more hungry for cooked, hot food. For junk food and fast food and quick meals and big dinners and breakfast lunch and supper--

God, she hopes she can ask this person in Greece about getting something else to eat, before she becomes the only mermaid to refuse fish and seafood just because she wanted a burger. 

With a wince, she stops swimming, and with new, needle-sharp teeth, Hana bites the head off of the small fish. It’s eyes pop in her mouth, but she forces herself to not gag as she swallows. 

She’s going to need the energy, after all.

* * *

3 weeks and change later, and Hana pops her head out of the water, delighted to see a flag flying on a beach. Greece, _finally_.

She hasn’t see a single other mermaid since leaving Malaysia behind, and it’s been a lonely swim. She’s had to avoid not only humans and fishing boats, but cargo ships and other sealife. The three-hour chase between her and a shark springs to mind, but she shakes it away. The less said about that, the better.

But she’s getting used to fish, even though she doesn’t WANT to, and she’s less prone to sudden bursts of tears. The remains of her jumpsuit have been cut down to a crop top, the bunny logo the only thing other than her pink face tattoo’s that mark her as D.va anymore.

Speaking of crying, she’s doing it now, glad to finally, maybe, be close to having someone to talk to. The times she’s debated poking her head up to say hello to a fisherman or swimmer…

Hana skirts close to the coast, keeping her eyes peeled for anything that looks like her.

Maybe that was why she’s so badly startled when the Mer finds her.

It was getting dark again, and Hana’s sitting in an underground ruin in the middle of the Mediterranean, fiddling with half a fish she doesn’t really want to eat anymore. She’d swam past a beach, and now her mind’s consumed by the thought of ice cream.

“You’re a long way from home, child.”

The voice is crackly and old sounding, an accent that Hana doesn’t recognize, and when she turns to say hello to whomever it is talking to her, she instead screeches and attempts to fall into a combat stance. Her tail prevents that though, and not for the first time she’s annoyed by it.

Instead she somersaults over herself, and reaches for a blaster that isn’t there anymore in terror. The…the thing in front of her isn’t human, covered in dark scales with a large mouth and dark eyes. Hana’s also pretty sure that it’s laughing at her.

“I—“ her voice gets caught in her throat, and it takes her a moment to squeak out a reply. “The mermaids in Korea told me to come talk to you. They…want me to stop the omnic in the ocean. Are you…are you the Mer?”

It hums in reply, before tilting it’s head and pointing to Hana’s half fish. “I can tell you how to control your powers if you bring me fish. I will wait here, Hana Song.”

It swims down into the ruins, and Hana is left gaping. “I…do you want any in particular? And how am I supposed to catch all these fish for you?” Then, quieter, to herself. "How do you know my name?"

There is a cackle from below. “Steal a net from a fisherman, they will think it was another human who took it.”

* * *

30 minutes later, and she returns to the ruins, a small net filled with fish in her hands.

“Hello? I have your fish-!” The Mer pops up out of the dark, and Hana nearly screeches again. Instead, she thrusts the bag at the Mer, who coos, pleased.

“You listen well. Better than the last child who came to me. Foolish.” It hums, biting one fish in half, satisfied.

Hana stays silent and watches the Mer eat, a little nauseated at how it swallows the fish whole. Besides, for all the sass she throws, threw, at her superiors and elders, she knows better than to do the same here.

When it finishes eating, the Mer folds the net up, and passes it back to Hana with a grin that is all blood stained teeth. She suddenly doesn’t want to know what happened to the other person who’d come to talk to the creature.

“Keep this. You never know when you’ll need to make another mermaid. A bite of fish, a mouth-full of blood. Important to know.”

“Right,” Hana nods, filing away the info. Sure, she’d been told it a while ago, but this makes it more of a real practice. “You said powers…what do you mean by that?”

The Mer tuts. “Sirens, we were called once. The power to speak, and make any man or woman or child do as we wish. Do you sing?”

Mind control, is that what the Mer was saying? Normally, Hana would say it was insane, but she just swam from Korea to Greece. “Uh, no. I’ve been told my singing is like a dying cat.”

The Mer frowns, or at least Hana thinks it does, and waves a webbed hand. “Then you will learn something like a song, to speak words of control.”

“Well…” So, if there’s a difference between talking and controlling… “I think I know what you mean. I don’t sing, but I have an idea.”

After all, D.va and Hana are the same but different. Her voice is a little…sweeter as D.va, more outgoing, really, than Hana.

The Mer grins, bloody teeth again, and this time it D.va who smiles back.

“So, Mer ajumma, how do I do this? Just go up to someone and tell them to do something for me?” If she still had heels, she’d be bouncing on them, but instead, she settles for swishing her tail.

Now it’s definitely laughing at her, bubbles floating up to the surface. “One or two at a time, child. Or you won’t be able to do anything. Now, you wish to stop that metal monster? Your words won’t do a thing.”

Hana frowns, but she figures it wouldn’t have been that easy to stop the omnic. “Then what can I do?”

The Mer waves a hand. “You’ve no talent for Calling, or you’d have an entourage. I have not seen a ghost ship, so you do not control Mirages. Were the seas calm as you swam to me?”

“Yes. Perfect, even. Why?”

“Water-witch, you are. If you concentrated, you could tear the ports of Ilios apart with a storm. That is how you will defeat the metal monster.” The Mer clacks it’s teeth together, and Hana shudders. It makes sense though—It only seems to rain when she’s crying.

“You will have to find others to aid you—go to the frozen shelf to the south. My kin there will help you, Hana Song. Now, go. Lure a human with a boat, and make your way there. You do not have much time before it attacks again.”

The Mer clacks it’s teeth together again, and sinks into the dark waters below, leaving Hana alone, but now with a plan.

Antarctica is the final stop, but, as Hana makes her way towards a marina, the sounds of Lúcio Correia dos Santos echoing from a radio, she decides her trip needs a detour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to Google, it's 5,434 miles of distance between Korea and Greece. Google also says that the average swimming speed is 2 mph, meaning a regular human would take 2717 hours or 118 days to swim from Korea to Greece. Hana has a tail though, so I put her at 5 mph, and she swam from Korea to Greece in a month plus change.  
> \--  
> Google says that:  
> Ajumma - Old Woman  
> Japchae - sweet potato noodles  
> Soondae / Sundae - boiled or steamed pig or cow intestines  
> Kimchi - fermented cabbage
> 
> Trotters refers to pigs feet-- I was just going to put that in, and my mom who watches a lOT of kdrama's was like 'they seem to call them trotters in every show I've watched' sO....
> 
> As always, let me know if I hecked something up!  
> \--
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [ Firefish Headcanons](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/tagged/firefish%20fic)


	3. Chapter 3

Luckily for Hana, the first person she approaches with a boat knows English, and Portuguese she assumes from the radio station the girl was listening to, and it’s without any trouble at all that Hana hauls herself up into the boat and gives the command to go west. The girl, a teenager who stares dreamily at her as she steers the boat out into the sea, has junk food on the boat, and Hana jumps on the chips and tzatziki without any remorse.

She’s been eating raw fish for weeks now, so can you really blame her?

It takes her just over an hour to start feeling guilty, and Hana slips out of the boat without a goodbye, sticking close until she hears the confused teenager panic slightly before turning back towards home. She swims by herself for a few days, raw fish again not quite catching her interest.

“Just tell yourself it’s a granola bar or something, and eat it.” She mutters to herself, scowling at one of the many small fish she’s got caught in her small net, and Hana nearly misses the way the wind picks up at her annoyance. But she doesn’t, and Hana rises to the surface, watching the storm start with interest.

Was that really her, causing the winds? Can she really make anything, the storms and lightning strikes in the ocean? She thinks of typhoons and cyclones, threats of riptides, tsunamis…

Hana shudders, draws herself from such thoughts, and the storm calms as she swims on, chewing on fishbones. She doesn’t want to be the one responsible for flooding and death, and hopes that this other Mer can teach her more about her powers.

* * *

She catches the next boat in Italy, she thinks, and she’s able to mime and fake enough Italian to enthrall a couple out for a day trip. She eats a salad, shares a bottle of sparkling water with the wife, and after a day and a half, leaves them with a ciao and a guilty smile. 

Again she swims by herself for the next few days, trying to make herself eat, sleeping on her back to watch the stars, and keeping out of sight of big boats and coast guards. Hana can’t imagine they’d be as easy to lure as the other three humans she’s met.

“…Humans…man, that’s a weird thought.” She hums to herself one night, drifting closer to Spain and closer to her destination. She might have been one, once, but now she’s a mermaid, as absurd as it seems. Hana briefly entertains the idea of mermaids living in the open with humans like the omnics do, before wincing. 

She’s seen the reports of the protests, the attacks and hate. It’d be so much worse, with the knowledge that mermaids could control people, and Hana could just see the slaughter that would come from the knowledge.

* * *

The next day she stops her swim briefly, pulling herself up onto some rocks. Hana knew about the watchpoints that Overwatch once had, huge bases where personnel stayed until deployed to help with a medical emergency, a war, a hostage situation, an assassination. She’d just never seen one before, and the one that sits on the cliff-side is an interesting distraction for a moment. If she could, she’d climb up and explore, but it’s not really an option without her legs. 

So Hana slips back into the water, sights set on a fishing vessel, and doesn’t know that while she was watching the base, someone was watching her.

* * *

The fishing boat doesn’t work out like Hana wants, and she slides into the water, frantically dashing away from nets and hooks, leaving irate men behind as she hides in the rocks of the ocean floor. She makes a mental note, filing it away with the rest of her new knowledge: 4 people, when Hana isn’t fluent in the language, is too many people to control.

She starts swimming again after a day of sulking, her net filling with fish as Hana darts in and out of schools, doing flips and twirls as she dashes through the water. It’s almost relaxing now, and she smiles as she grabs a small yellow fish in her hands.

“Who needs a net when you’ve got reflexes like there?” she laughs, even as the loneliness begins to set in again. She can’t wait to get to Rio, even as stupid as her detour is.

It’s bound to be full of people, and they are going to notice a half fish, half human person in the water, no matter how safe she plays it. But Hana doesn’t care—she never got a chance to see Lucio in concert, and if it takes her becoming something non-human to even just hear it, she’s taking it.

And it’s with that in mind that she pops out of the water and into another boat, charming the owner into heading closer to Brazil, and into giving her their lunch.

* * *

It’s been over a month, Hana knows that much, when Brazil comes into view. She’s never been, it was never a local her managers wanted her to appear at, and for a moment she floats in the waters, listening to the sounds of the beaches and people. 

Again, she’s lonely.

Again, she knows better than to pop up and talk to a swimmer or fisherman without being D.va.

So instead Hana finds a pretty piece of coral to hide in, and takes small bites of the large fish she’d nabbed almost by accident after it nearly speared her in her distraction. She doesn’t know what the fish is called, but it’s huge and isn’t a one bite meal.

* * *

Hana is early for once, Lúcio’s concert not for another three days, so she makes herself content by exploring the area and tempting a few tourists into giving her food. God, she’s missed ice cream. She also figures out exactly where she’s going to be to listen to the concert-- there’s a new development close to the stadium and there’s direct access to it from the ocean. She just has to be careful.

And Hana is, she’s just not careful enough.

That night the development is empty, construction in hard light not finished and the architechs gone home for the night. Hana swims past locals and foreigners, keeping flat on the bottom and out of sight of anyone as she moves into Rio de Janerio.

The concert has started by the time Hana pops her head out of the water and pulls herself up onto the concrete beside it, and she closes her eyes and hums as Lúcio works his magic. 

It’s his last concert for a while, he’s got something else in the works, and he’s saying goodbye and goodnight to his city. He’s rallying them up against Vishkar, warning them and telling them to keep the city safe. 

The concert is almost half-over when someone clears their throat behind her, and Hana freezes. She’d been swaying to the music, tapping her fingers on the concrete under her, and someone snuck up on her.

“This area is not open to the public, and if you were here for the concert, you’d be in the streets listening, not breaking into private property. Who are you and why are you here?”

It’s a woman, and Hana takes a deep breath, ready to be D.va and dive into the water.

“Why are you wearing such a ridiculous outfit?” the woman then asks, and Hana sighs.

“It’s not an outfit.” She replies, spinning so she can look at whoever it is who found her. 

The woman is wearing heels, and Hana winces, ashamed that not only did the woman sneak up on her, she did it in heels. Her hair is pulled back, and she’s wearing a, frankly, stunning blue dress. She also has her eyes pinned to Hana’s tail, a frown on her face.

“Then explain that. A costume? Or are you an actor from some tourist park?” the woman demands, and Hana can tell she’s itching to move closer and look at her tail. She responds by flicking it a little, sending a small splash of water up onto the grass, concrete, and dirt.

“It’s just my tail. Couldn’t have gotten here without it.” God, Hana is happy she took the time to learn Portuguese. Her slight obsession with one specific artist really has helped her out the last few days. “I’m a—“ she hesitates, but pushes through. It’s not like this woman can really tell anyone and expect to be believed, right? “—a mermaid.”

There's a silence between them, Lúcio’s music filling the air, before the woman nods. “I see then why you haven't joined the rest of the city to listen.”

Hana can tell that the woman doesn't believe her fully, what sane person would ordinarily, but she drops that line of questioning. 

But Hana doesn't let her ask any other questions, instead barging through with one of her own. “Are you here to listen too? I mean, I get why you wouldn't want to go in person.”

“I don't know what you mean.” Hana thinks she does though, because she pointedly turns away to stare out at the lights coming from the concert.

“You work for them, right? Vishkar? You have a little badge on your dress, so…It’s be awkward if you went to listen to Lúcio’s show. Which song is your favourite?” She’s so sure that the woman is embarrassed now, and grins. “Come _ooooooon_ , you can tell me!”

Hana doesn’t even notice that she’s lapsed into her D.va persona until the woman freezes, then turns and moves closer to her almost mechanically. She opens her mouth to answer, and Hana waves her hands, almost panicked. She hadn’t meant to do that!

“No! no no no, it’s okay, you don’t have to!” Damnit, she was having fun, talking to someone without having to basically command them to talk to her, and then she went and fucked it up.

With a soft curse, she slipped into the water, making her way out of the area before the woman could say anything, heading back to the ocean. Hana spends the rest of her night in the coral, picking at her fish and scowling at nothing. All she wanted was to talk to someone, damnit.

* * *

She sleeps all day, far enough from the coast that she doesn’t need to worry about tourists stumbling across her while on a boat, and it’s night when she pulls herself up to the surface. Rio is glorious from the water, lights reflecting on the water and music from all over the place echoing in the night.

And even though it’s stupid and reckless and there’s no guarantee that the woman will be back at the Vishkar development, Hana returns. 

But Hana is wrong—the woman is there, but this time her heels are off and her feet are dangling in the water as she fiddles with something in her hand. She hides her surprise well as Hana pops her head out of the water, and nods a hello.

“I was worried that I would be making a fool of myself, waiting here. I am glad to see that is not the case,” the woman says, and the little ball of light in her hand disappears. Hana swims to the edge of the water, but doesn’t pull herself up and out.

“I’m sorry. About last night. I didn’t mean to do that.” Hana spits out, stopping herself from sinking down to the bottom of the hard light lake to hide. “I was just…I wasn’t trying to make you—“

The woman holds up her hand, the prosthetic, and speaks. “It is fine, D.va. I understand.”

Hana doubts that she does, but she’s startled that the woman knows who she is. “You recognized me?”

The woman hums. “Not…exactly. But Santos made a point of mentioning you and your sacrifice for your country. He…was a fan.” She hesitates, like she’s not sure how to refer to Hana’s state of being, and Hana isn’t sure either. “I noticed your appearance was similar, and, ah, googled you.”

She says the word like it’s a curse, and Hana giggles into her hand, a little overwhelmed. Lucio had mentioned her in his concert? The woman had looked her up? She’d waited in the same spot to see if Hana’d come back?

“O-oh. Uh, I’m glad you came back. I wanted to say I’m sorry about last night…” she hesitates, then bobs her head. “Joesonghamnida.”

“Yes, I gathered by the way that you already apologized. But, regardless, dhanyavaad.” The woman doesn’t quite smile, but Hana does, relaxing a little. She feels better, the guilt that’d plagued her all day and night disappearing.

“So, what’s your name? I mean, you kinda know mine… you can call me Hana—I’m not really D.va anymore, I guess.” She rests her arms on the side of the lake, laying her head down and watching the woman. She doesn’t seem too keen to tell her name, struggling almost in her head whether she should say anything or not, before giving up what Hana thinks has to be a nickname.

“You may call me Symmetra.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> According to google, it’s 6035.55 miles from Athens Greece to Rio de Janerio Brazil, which means a normal human with a swimming speed of 2 mph would make it there in 3017 hours, or 125 days. Hana, at a speed of 5 mph, plus boats, makes it there in under 1207 hours, so between a month and 40 days
> 
> Google says:  
> joesonghamnida = I'm sorry (korean)  
> dhanyavaad = thank you (hindi)
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

Symmetra, Hana decided, was fun. She wasn’t fun in the way Hana’s former teammates were, loud and noisy and boisterous, but still fun in a quiet way. She liked to dance and read, and would meet with Hana at night when no one else was in the development. She also took the time, when Hana asked, to tell Hana about the people she left behind.

It only took two days for Symmetra to read through the colossal amount of news regarding her death and pick out the pieces that she assumed would interest Hana the most. She avoided bringing up the funeral, her parents, the military, and Hana was grateful.

“There’s a memorial outside your old high school, pictures and prayers. The title of Starcraft champion was transferred to an American. They started a scholarship in your name. Not all your team members died that day,” she read, and Hana sighed. She never did like the American player, but she was glad at least one or two of her squad mates survived.

The pair met for four nights before Symmetra didn’t show. Hana lounged in the artificial lake for a few hours, then left before the early risers and Architechs could spot her. The next night is the same, and the one after it as well. 

She wasn’t worried though. Of course not. Symmetra was a highly-trained Vishkar Architech, after all, so nothing bad could happen to her.

Right?

* * *

“You thought that about yourself too, baegchi, and now look at you…” Hana muttered the next night as she darted under the cover of darkness to their meeting point. This time Symmetra was there, and Hana nearly launched herself at the other woman when she saw her. Instead, she simply pulled herself up and out of the water, waiting for Symmetra to speak first.

“I…” The woman frowned, and Hana tilted her head to the side, waiting. She looked lost and upset, and Hana was willing to wait. “I do not agree with how Vishkar is operating, anymore. I do not know what to do.”

It was a surprise, to say the least. Despite her love of Lucio’s music, Symmetra had always defended her corporation and their actions in their late night talks, even when it got so heavy that Hana had to pull herself under the water to groan in frustration.

“What happened?” Hana wanted to say “I missed you, where were you” too, but she wasn’t sure if Symmetra even thought of them as friends, so she instead she focused the conversation on whatever had shaken her faith in her company.

Symmetra was silent as she stood, removing her feet from the water. She began to spin in place, the start of a dance, as she tried to find the right words in Portuguese to explain what had happened.

“I also speak English, if that helps you any?” Hana offered, and she translated the look Symmetra sent her as grateful.

“I…believe in order, symmetry, perfection. All to help people. Vishkar was…They provided order, better lives for the people, but the people never understood.” Symmetra paused, frustration and anger evident in her voice. “Vishkar burnt down another favela.” 

Symmetra was dancing now, to music that Hana couldn’t hear but she imagined was coming from the headset she wore. “I know that Vishkar is frustrated when the people will not listen, but…people have lost their houses, people have died. Again.”

It’s the _again_ at the end of that sentence that had Hana worrying at her lip with needle-sharp teeth, but she remained quiet as Symmetra danced. She’d thought she’d seen flames when she woke, but she hadn’t been sure. Now she knew.

“I do not know what to do, Hana.”

Symmetra created something small with hard light, before crushing it as she finished her dancing. Instead of moving back towards the pool, she sat, before laying back on the damp grass with a groan. 

“What do you want to do, Symm?” Hana couldn’t move any closer without beaching herself, and her upper arm strength was never that great. She also didn’t think she’d be able to get over to her without help, and the last thing Hana wanted to do was make Symmetra roll her around on the grass.

“I—“ Symmetra hesitated, before shaking her head. “I do not know. I want to leave, but I can not. I do not think what I want is achievable.” She sighed, a full body thing. “I do not want to be Vishkar anymore.”

She was wearing the blue dress again, the second time Hana had seen her in it, and Symmetra sat up, fiddling with the hem. “My name is Satya,” she said suddenly, a frown on her face. “Symmetra is my call sign, when Vishkar wants me to engage in corporate espionage for them.”

Hana felt like she’d been given a heavy thing to carry, and she tucked Symmetra, Satya’s, name and wishes deep in her mind. “Why not? Can’t you just quit?” Satya was a spy as well as an Architech? 

“No. Vishkar does not always hire their Architechs. Some they…acquire.” She sounded sour, fisting her hands in her dress. “I was a child when they found I had talent for hard light manipulation, and I have been Vishkar since. Simply leaving is not an option I have.”

“Oh…” Hana picked at a fraying edge of her shirt, the faint thought that she was going to have to get a new one entering her mind along with a more unpleasant thought. “Uhm, Symm, Satya? A little off topic, but I’ve got something to tell you.”

“No no, please, go ahead. These are not thoughts that I wish to dwell on anymore.” Her mood seemed to lift at the proposed change of topic, and Hana almost didn’t want to say what she needed to.

“I’m…I’m going to leave in the next few days, Satya. I have to go to Antarctica, I guess? There’s someone there I need to talk to, before the omnic attacks Korea again.” Hana watched as Satya’s face fell at the news, and Hana almost wished she’d said nothing. “I’m sorry…I’m supposed to talk to them about all this.”

Hana gestured to her tail, and Satya lent forwards, looking without moving closer to the pool. Hana knew that Satya was curious about what happened to her, but it hadn’t become a topic of conversation.

“About how you were turned?” she asked, taping her fingers against the damp concrete. 

Hana shook her head. “No, I already know how that happened, and how…to…” She trailed off, looking Satya over. Should she say what she was thinking? On one hand, she’d love the company on her swim, and Satya does want out of Vishkar, but on the other Satya wouldn’t be human anymore. 

And, hell, the only reason it’d happened to Hana in the first place was because she was close to dying.

“…how much do you like your legs?” She finally asked, and Satya’s frown deepened. 

“I use them to dance, but I do not feel any particular special fondness for them. Why?”

“I know how to make you into a mermaid, like me, if you want. I mean, it’s up to you, 900%, but you’d be able to get away from Vishkar, right? But you wouldn’t be able to leave the water much, I don’t think, and fish gets really boring after a while. And you have to eat them raw which takes a lot of getting used to—“ Hana cut herself off when she realized how much she was rambling, and debated diving into the water and swimming away for the night. “Sorry.”

Sorry seemed to be her word of the night.

“…are you proposing that you make me a mermaid, and that I run away from Vishkar to travel with you to Antarctica?” Hana nodded, sheepish. God, what a dumb idea, opening her mouth like that. What had she been thinking, if at all? “I would…like that.”

“Sorry, sorry, I won’t mention—wait, what?” Well, that wasn’t what she thought Satya would say. “Really?”

Satya scowled, and waved her hand in the air. “I did say so, did I not? What do you need for the process?” 

“Uh—“ Think Hana, think. You _know_ what you need. “A fish and mermaid’s blood. And, uh, you, obviously. I don’t think I should do it here though. This is a little small, I think. And not really private.” She gestured to the artificial lake, and Satya nodded in understanding. 

“Then I will meet you on the pier located just off this waterway…would an hour be sufficient time for you to prepare?”

Hana nodded, a little stunned. She hadn’t really expected a response to her question beyond repulsion. “Y-yeah. I’ll just have to go catch a fish…Uh, I guess wear that? Pants don’t really work when you have a tail.”

“I supposed I can not take my headset with me then,” Satya said, before chuckling. “I will not miss it. My arm should be fine, however. I will just need a moment to settle some things, and I will see you soon, Hana.”

She turned to leave, then paused. “Thank you.”

“Munje eobs-eo.” Hana replied, stunned as she slipped into the water. An hour was plenty of time to find a fish and meet Satya by the pier, but Hana wasn’t sure it’d be enough time to come to grips with what she was about to do.

* * *

The hour passed quickly, Hana darting in and out of the reef, looking for anything good to use for her friend, because if Satya was letting Hana make her a mermaid then they are definitely friends now. All the fish in the reef are small, too small, Hana thought to herself as she swam further out, looking for something larger than her hand to grab.

The pier is almost deserted when she returns. There were people talking, doing work on their boats and making plans, and Hana swam past with her captive fish in arm, looking for light blue and gold on the surface. She found Satya sitting on the edge of the far pier, legs dangling out over the water as she did something on her headset.

“Hey! Satya, I got you a fish, does it look okay?” She managed to find another of the large blue fish with the pointed nose, and she hauled it out of the water for Satya to inspect.

“A marlin?” Well, now Hana knows what kind of fish it is. “It’s very…big. I do not have to eat the entire thing, do I?”

She had no idea. “I don’t think so, just a bite, I think.” Hana paused, holding the fish close to her like a lifeline. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s…It’s not a one-time thing, Satya. You’ll be like this until you die, and I just…I want you to be absolutely sure about this.”

Satya nodded. “I am. I will admit it was not something I’d considered until you mentioned it to me, but…I can not stay with Vishkar any longer, and I can not see myself leaving them intact if I tried.” Now she paused, tapping something on the side of her headset with a frown. “You are offering me an escape that I can not turn down. So, yes. I am absolutely, 900%, sure about this.”

“Okay…Well, if you’re ready then, I guess it’s time to start.” Hana was glad that Satya was sure about doing this, because she sure as hell wasn’t. 

With a self-satisfied hum, Satya shut off her headset, and set it aside, along with her boots and the shorts she wore under the high-slit dress. Then, taking a deep breath, she slipped off the pier and into the water with Hana.

Hana smiled, weakly, as Satya grabs for the pier to keep her head above the water. “Can you swim?”

Satya shook her head. “It was never anything I needed to learn, and I never got the chance to try for myself. I suppose I’ll have to learn, though.” She added, her outfit clinging to her in the night-chilled water.

Hana laughed now, a giggle of nervousness, before trying to steel herself for the task at hand. “Are you ready?” Something about what she was about to do was terrifying her, but she pushed the feeling down and away. 

“I am,” Satya replied, and with that, Hana took a bite of the fish. She tore a chunk of the flesh out, spitting it in her hand and dropping the rest of the fish. Next, she bit her other hand, the taste of copper filling her mouth, nauseating in a way that fishes blood wasn’t.

“Hana…?” Satya looked worried, probably because of all the blood spilling into the water around them, and she nearly shrieked as Hana lunged towards her. The mouthful of fish was shoved into her mouth without much ceremony, before Hana pressed her wounded hand to her lips.

“ _Eat_ ,” she hissed, her D.va persona leeching through along with something else, and Satya obeyed, swallowing the pale flesh and deep red blood like her life depended on it. 

Hell, for all Hana knew, it might.

They’re both under the water now, and Hana could see Satya’s feet hit the silt at the bottom under the pier, her eyes are wide and terrified. But she didn’t pull away -couldn’t pull away- and Hana was breathing heavily as she finally drew back, watching as Satya went limp.

God, she drowned her, didn’t she? She fucked up somehow, not enough fish or blood or maybe the Mer didn’t tell her everything she needed to know about turning someone into a mermaid, fuck—

She can’t sink to her knees, not underwater and with a tail, so instead Hana fell flat on the bottom, tears in her eyes and a growl of frustration in her throat as she dug her hands into the sand. All-- all she’d wanted was— She didn’t mean-- 

Above them the clouds gather, a storm incoming, and Hana didn’t notice. She didn’t notice a thing around her, not the waves against the shore and not her own crying. Not the wound in her hand healing in moments, nor the slight shift of _something_ on her face. 

Not until she looked up, and realized the noise she’d been hearing wasn’t her, but Satya. 

Hana watched in mute horror as Satya thrashed and screamed, her blood now filling the water, and it took Hana much longer than she’d admit to kick herself into gear, darting forwards to grab the other woman. Satya was kicking and thrashing, and Hana watched as her body changed from where she was holding her torso steady. 

It was a slow process, Satya’s legs fusing into one entity, her ankles and feet becoming fins. Skin and muscles changed and peeled away, and Hana could see bones under her skin as they cracked and morphed into new shapes. The red and bloody skin gave way to deep blue scales after a time, but Hana couldn’t feel bothered to appreciate the colour.

She simply felt sick.

* * *

In all, it took over half an hour for Satya to stop screaming, a sound Hana knew she’ll never forget, and an hour for her to stop thrashing enough for Hana to gather her up and start swimming out of the area before someone came to investigate the sounds. The storm above them is bad, but Satya was loud, and Hana can’t imagine it’ll take long for someone to come looking.

What would they find? Blood in the water, skin and tissue and who knew what else floating at the top, Satya’s headset and boots on the shore…Hana shuddered as she reached the reef she’d ben using as a base. They were going to say she’d killed herself, weren’t they.

Setting the unresponsive woman against a piece of coral, Hana moved back a bit to wait, before curling in on herself. 

Was that what she’d gone through? Had those children she’d woken too watched as she thrashed and screamed? Who gave her the blood, who held her down while her body contorted and changed, who had brought the fish?

How could she stand, knowing that she’d done the same to someone else?

Hana wasn’t sure how long she’d been curled up, breath hitching with each sob as she tried not to dig her fingers into the meat of her tail and scream, when she heard a groan. Eyes wide, she looked up and sobbed, with relief this time, as Satya opened her eyes.

“I’m sorry! I’m so, so sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you!” she spat out before she could stop herself, but Satya only gave her a confused look in reply.

“What? But, you didn’t hurt me…” she said slowly, looking around herself before looking down at her tail. “I don’t understand, I’m unharmed. Are you okay, Hana?” It took her a few tries before she could, but she swam to where Hana was floating, shaking.

Hana, in turn, looked at Satya, looked at her hands, and curled up again. She had no idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D being made into a mermaid is Not Fun-- poor Satya 
> 
> According to google:  
> Baegchi is idiot in Korean   
> Munje eobs-eo is no problem in Korean
> 
> [Personal Tumblr](http://happyleech.tumblr.com/) / [Overwatch Tumblr](http://over-swatch.tumblr.com/) / [TextsFromLastNight Overwatch Tumblr](http://textsfromwatchpointgibraltar.tumblr.com/)

**Author's Note:**

> Mermaid AU because I can't stick to one darn thing haha OTL  
> Hana will not be the only mermaid from the overwatch cast  
> Title refers to the kind of fish that Hana's tail is  
> Not edited at all oops sorry in advance  
> \--  
> (Feel free to let me know if I fucked anything up with the Korean. Google can only do so much)  
> Noona = older sister  
> Sunsengnim = teacher


End file.
